


Back to Work

by 0Rocky41_7



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canon Backstory, F/M, Morality, Pre-Canon, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28371330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Rocky41_7/pseuds/0Rocky41_7
Summary: The longer Thane struggles to find work to support his young family, the more tempting it is to fall back on old, well-honed skills.
Relationships: Irikah Krios/Thane Krios
Comments: 14
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So one of the wild canon facts to me is that Irikah supported Thane's decision to go into freelance assassin work. At some point she went from being the one who stepped in front of his rifle to giving him the green light to go back into that kind of work and I feel like that changes the flavor of his backstory quite a lot. Also, I have to wonder what happened to give her that change of heart. In my mind, then, they BOTH grew complacent over the course of his career and stopped thinking of it as something dangerous until it bit them.
> 
> Drell pantheon:  
> Amonkira - God of the hunt  
> Arashu - Goddess of motherhood and protection  
> Kalahira - Goddess of the ocean and death

Irikah knew the sound of Thane approaching their house, the tiny auditory details of him unlocking the door, stepping into the house. Always, he was quiet, but not silent—never had she asked if this was purposeful (so that he would not startle her, so that she would _know_ it was him), any more than she had considered why she had trained herself so well to hear his approach.

That night, she heard the sound in the lull of conversation, and waited for Thane to come into the kitchen, where she and Kolyat were eating, but he did not. His footsteps vanished elsewhere in the house, and with a frown, Irikah set down her utensil.

“I’ll be back,” she said to Kolyat at the table, making sure there was nothing but his bowl within reach before following Thane.

Thane was in the bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was a few sizes too small, and they had had to choose carefully what went into it. ‘They’ was a bit misleading though, wasn’t it? Irikah chose—Thane had so few possessions and so little furniture that most of it he cast off when he joined her in her apartment, before they had come to the house. He seemed wholly content to let her do whatever she wanted with the house. The only thing he’d ever _insisted_ on was hanging that awful watercolor of Kolyat she had done a few months ago, which was still in the hallway, where Irikah was torn between embarrassment about its existence and flushed pleasure that Thane wanted it on display. For a moment, Irikah watched him stare blankly into the closet, then she spoke.

“Thane?” When he turned to look at her, his face answered every question she might have posed, and she couldn’t help the way her shoulders slumped. Another lost job. Reading the unspoken thoughts in her posture, Thane looked away, head lowered, shame radiating from the line of his shoulders, the angles of his face.

She wanted to say _It’s okay._ She wanted to say _You’ll find something else_. She wanted to rub his back and kiss his frills and assure him everything would be Just Fine. But she had said and done all those things so many times, they were starting to ring a bit hollow, especially when she was starting to water down their soup so it would last longer, and they were getting regular calls from the bank, and Kolyat was starting to grow out of the newborn gifts from Irikah’s friends.

“Come eat,” was what she said in the end, straightening up off the doorframe. “We weren’t done yet when you got here.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said, turning away from her.

“Then come sit with us,” she urged. “Kolyat has missed you.” She could sense another refusal on the horizon, but Thane swallowed it and conceded to following her out to the kitchen, where he stared distractedly at the condiments on the table while Kolyat chirped and made a mess of his dinner. While Thane tried to feed the baby, Irikah let her mind drift to the house’s dehumidifying system, which had not been up to par lately, and which she had been trying to puzzle out how to fix herself. Enough online videos and it should be a cinch, she kept telling herself.

Thane scooped Kolyat up after he was done eating and carried him into the living room that doubled as Kolyat’s bedroom, and bounced him until the boy trilled and shrieked with glee. Irikah moved slowly with the dishes, listening to the sounds of them, and reaching back to the early days of their courtship, when everything felt golden and new, awash in rebirth: when they had all stood on the precipice of a new life.

How quickly such fantasies faded in the reality of the work required, she thought as she scraped the leftovers into a container. When Thane had finally left the Compact, they had toasted to his new freedom, giddy with possibility and aglow with their tender love. It had not occurred to either of them that Thane lacked any skillsets for another career, or that Irikah’s job would not be enough to support all of them, especially when she transitioned to part-time work to be at home for Kolyat.

That night, she caught him cleaning one of his guns.

The weapons of his Compact life were something she had never pressed him to get rid of: he kept them well out of Kolyat’s reach, and it felt wrong to ask Thane to cast aside mementos of what his whole life had been before they ran off together. But in all the time they’d lived together, she’d never seen him touch them, except to move them as necessary.

“What are you doing?” she asked, keeping her voice low, though it was unlike they would wake Kolyat from the shed.

“I don’t want them to fall into disrepair,” Thane replied.

It was a lie. Irikah knew it was a lie, and she knew that Thane knew she knew. But she allowed herself to believe it. Maybe if she had not believed it, she could have headed things off. She could have pressed him then, stopped him there, had a fight that would have put the issue to bed forever. Maybe things could have been different—a thought Thane had a thousand times, and a thousand times again in the years after. But all she did was nod, and left him to his cleaning, telling herself she was being respectful of his space.

The next morning, he announced he was going on a job hunt.

“I’ll be gone a few days,” he said.

“I don’t see why you can’t do this from the house,” Irikah said.

“There will be fewer distractions,” he said. “And I want to go in person, if I can. I’ll stay with a contact in the city, so I will not spend any money on lodging.” She didn’t want to admit that had been among her concerns, but even with it assuaged, she still felt uneasy. Again, she allowed herself to turn a blind eye. Again, it left a sour twist in her gut. Again, they laid down the stones of a path neither of them wanted to follow.

Irikah knew the sound of Thane’s approach to their home. The first night, she was awake in bed for hours, listening, even though she did not expect him. The scent of his skin, of his oils, clung to his pillowcase, keeping her company. Every night after, she sat up late in Kolyat’s room, reading news articles and waiting.

Three nights after he had left, Thane returned, but Irikah didn’t hear him. She was reading, a glass of golden liquid beside her, wafting the smell of alcohol around her chair, and then suddenly Thane was there, blinking in surprise to see her still up, and she knew he could have been entering their house silently all along.

Packed grocery bags loaded his arms, and on his back was his sniper rifle.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“I thought I would stop by the market on the way home,” he said, and the only thing that kept Irikah from shouting was Kolyat, asleep in the corner. With eyes like flame, she rose to her feet and pushed him into the kitchen. Her fingers brushed the strap on the rifle’s case and it felt like a burn.

“ _Where were you_?” she demanded again in a hiss, her voice vibrating with fury.

Thane set the bags down. He looked at Irikah, almost reproachfully, as if to chastise her for asking a question to which she already knew the answer, an answer she did not want to hear. There was something else, something more distant, something darker, and for the first time, Irikah looked at her beloved, at her mate, and thought that he was broken. For the first time, she looked at Thane, and thought _He is beyond my reach_. There was a saying, among the drell there: A drell can live on Kahje, but she will never learn to breathe underwater. Irikah had taken Thane from the Compact, but the assassin was still in him.

_I was six years old when I was given over to the Compact._

Was it _possible_ for someone shaped from an age so young to be anything other than what the hanar had made him? Looking into his eyes that night was the first time Irikah felt he was slipping between her fingers, sliding out to a white-capped sea.

“Thane…”

“These are for Kolyat,” he said, reaching into one of the bags to produce a box, which he pressed into Irikah’s arms. Automatically, Irikah lifted the lid.

New clothes.

A shudder went through her, and she warred between screaming at Thane and breaking down completely. Forcing herself to breathe steadily, she tried to choose a more rational approach, but it felt like someone else was controlling her body. She wasn’t having a conversation with her husband; the conversation was having _her_.

“You can’t do this,” she whispered, shaking her head. She took a step back from him, and dropped the box on the counter, her skin crawling. “Thane, you can’t do this.”

“We need this house, Irikah,” Thane said. His reply was patient, but there was an underlying push for her to be _reasonable_. “We can’t move again. And Kolyat needs things.”

“This isn’t the way to do it!” Her voice started to rise, and for a moment, she felt like control of the moment was at her fingertips. “You said no more.” She calmed her words, but could not quell the smolder in her eyes. “When you left the Compact, you said you were done with this.”

The light was low—she had not bothered to switch on a light in the kitchen, where it might disturb Kolyat—but she knew Thane was looking away from her.

“It was just one job,” he told her. “Irikah, we need something to hold us over until I can get real work.” There was pleading there now. Never did Thane raise his voice with her, or accuse her of unfairness, or dismiss her. He pleaded for her understanding, as he had begged for her forgiveness at their first meeting.

“It can’t be like this,” she said, shaking her head. The house in disrepair she could manage. The too-small rooms, the absence of family trips or working vehicles or anything shiny and new, the too-frequent haggling with the bank. The faulty dehumidifier was more troubling, but they could figure it out. But what if Thane could not find work, and they had to move again, to a smaller house in more disrepair? What if Kolyat fell ill, and needed treatment? What if she lost her job? At what point where they desperate enough for her to accept Thane’s skills as the best way to save them?

_Never!_ she thought fiercely. There was never a time when she would bow her head to her beloved one killing people to put food on their table.

“You can’t do this again, Thane,” she said. He paused, then gave a slow nod, and reached for her, his woundedness softening her heart to her own annoyance. Irikah sank against his chest, digging her fingers into his sides as if she could hold him there, pull him back from the shadows that threatened to envelop him. Pressed close to him, she could feel an almost imperceptible tremor in him, and she tightened her grip, as though he were crying out for her to pull him back to shore.

The next morning, Irikah thought to check their bank account. If Thane wanted to argue this could help them, she wanted to know how much he had made off it. When she opened the account, her mouth dropped open and her throat paled. There was more money than she had seen in it in well over a year, even after Thane’s extravagant grocery shopping.

She hated him. She hated him for leading her to the position of having to consider assassination as a plausible way to make ends meet. She hated herself for willingly stepping into that position.

She hated him because she was afraid of losing him to what the Compact had raised him to be.

There were other jobs, the same unsteady work he had been hammering away at since they were wed. The job security in the kind of entry level jobs Thane worked was nonexistent, and he was often let go for things wholly unrelated to his performance on the job. Any downturns in the economy made work ridiculously hard to find, but he seemed to do better than he used to, in the earlier years.

It was just about a year past the assassination job when they were huddled on pillows in the living room, Kolyat tucked between both of his parents, riveted by the brightly-colored movie onscreen, when Thane’s comm flashed. In the earliest days of their acquaintance, Thane had constantly been excusing himself to answer his comm, to have low, clipped conversations about things he would never discuss, not even with Irikah, not even after leaving the Compact. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen it go off; Thane didn’t _have_ anyone who called.

When the little red light blinked, she caught her breath, waiting for him to brush it off as a wrong contact, or dismiss some acquaintance by telling them he’d call them back, but he rose to his feet.

“Excuse me, this should be quick. Don’t stop the movie.” He left the room, and Irikah watched him go, suddenly gripped by fear that Thane was already lost to her (or perhaps he had never been hers; perhaps the Compact had ruled him straight through her wedding vows). When Thane had come to Irikah, he had seemed to ask for her to save him, as she saved others with her research, and she had been tender to his plea. She could not now let him pass beneath the waves; she could not allow it.

_You woke me from my battle-sleep_ , he had told her. How raw must it have been, to _feel_ things after so many years of suppressing it? How vulnerable was it still? Was it ever tempting to fade back into that nothingness?

_I will not let you go back to that_ , she thought. _I will not let you do that for us_. How could she? How could she stomach the thought of Thane killing so they could eat?

“I am merely the weapon,” he would say. “Or do you blame a gun for the death, rather than the one who pulled the trigger?”

But it had to affect his soul—or how did he explain the battle-sleep? She knew that he remembered each and every kill—she had seen him relive them, rubbed his back while his eyes glazed over and he whispered about brains spattered on walls and gurgling finals breaths and the numbness in his hands after hours crouched on a window sill.

“It is an honor to serve the Compact,” he said, and so the drell fervently believed. And in the end, Thane’s handler had let him go, but what of Thane, and the peace of his soul? Or was that too, due payment for the race that had saved them from Rakhana’s collapse?

_Perhaps it is what he is meant to do, and you are only keeping him from it_ , whispered a voice in Irikah’s head, which she shook off promptly. No one was born a killer.

_I was six years old when I was given over to the Compact_.

But there was a choice. That was what she had tried to impress upon Thane in the earliest days of their acquaintance—he had the right to _choose_. And surely— _surely!_ —given the choice, he would not fall back on _that_.

Surely, there was a better future for Thane out there, if they could only find it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [On tumblr](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/639274218543104000/back-to-work-12) | [On Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1954601)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE NOTE: If you read the first chapter previously, it has been overhauled, because I realized it fundamentally contracted canon from the comics I was not aware of OTL It's fixed now but the shift is relevant to the rest of the story,
> 
> **Fun canon facts!**  
>  \- The drell live in climate-controlled dome cities on Kahje, which is almost totally covered in oceans  
> \- After their marriage, Irikah observed Thane's sleeplessness and gave him an old coin that she says her father used to rub when he was anxious  
> \- The number one cause of death for drell on Kahje is Kepral's Syndrome   
> \- Irikah was a researcher for a rare hanar disease, but there was "moral controversy" about her research and armed thugs once attempted to raid her labs. Thane helped her put them down and this helped him gain her trust.  
> \- It was Irikah who encouraged Thane to leave the Compact so that he would have the "freedom to choose" his own life
> 
> **Headcanons:**  
>  \- Thane's concept art showed him with several piercings through his frill. What if drell, when they exchanged rings, wore them as piercings?   
> \- Many drell suffer from something akin to perpetual seasonal affective disorder owing to the lack of sunlight on Kahje  
> \- Drell like to lounge around under heat lamps, especially on Kahje where there's so little natural light. It relaxes them.

“We need to talk.” Irikah cornered Thane in the bedroom a few days after the comm call. There was a shiftiness to the curl of his fingers, the darting of his eyes, but hadn’t there always been? Thane was a man perpetually on low guard, and he knew well that Irikah’s righteous fury was a force to reckon with. She closed the door behind her with a quiet _whoosh_ and the click of metal on metal.

Thane didn’t argue, or try to duck out; he turned, framed by the feeble lights above the high windows, his expression as collected as ever. He was so like a calm day; if Irikah had not seen him on his knees, begging her forgiveness on the very first day they met, she would have wondered if it were ever possible to ruffle him (she learned, of course, in many days after, that it _was_ , and she had then delighted in her ability to do it).

“You’ve been killing,” she said, wondering, as soon as the words were out, if she should have said it more diplomatically, led up to it better.

“I haven—”

“Don’t _lie_ to me, Thane!” Now she did raise her voice, and jabbed a yellow finger at him, a tremor in her arm. _If you lie to me_ , she thought _, so help me, I will leave you_. She knew there was much of Thane’s past that would be forever shrouded, either because he struggled to speak of it, or because his lifelong career was one that necessitated secrecy, but she would not abide by his creating new secrets between them while he wore her ring through his frill.

“I’m not lying,” he said, and Irikah, trained to the tenor of his voice, could hear the tension in it. “I haven’t taken any contracts since you asked me not to.” The fire in Irikah’s eyes did not cool, but she didn’t interrupt. “I was a lookout for others,” he murmured, holding her gaze as he confessed. “But I have not killed.”

Irikah’s shoulders relaxed and she realized how tightly coiled her muscles were, as if preparing for a fight.

“I’m sorry, Irikah,” Thane said, still the low, soft voice of the penitent. “I didn’t know what else to do. We need so many things, and it’s been months since I found anything else…I didn’t want to see you and Kolyat go hungry.” Again, pleading for her understanding. “If we could pay off those loans we took out last year, it would help our credit, we might be able to get a car…”

Tentatively, Irikah was willing to say Thane had not lied to her before. Not about anything that mattered. When he refused to speak to her of things, he was merely avoidant. If she pressed, he would tell her candidly that he couldn’t speak of it. And now, as she gazed into his earnest gaze, she believed that was still true—Thane was not lying.

“Maybe you should have been a lawyer instead,” she said, her mouth twisting into a wry look. “You know what I _meant_ , Thane.”

“I know.” Now he looked away, but only for a moment. “I thought, perhaps if I did not pull the trigger, you wouldn’t mind as much…”

Irikah sighed, and leaned back against the door.

“I was really hoping we would get a new ration of funding during the last biotech conference…” If only Irikah’s passion for her research could have funded it, or signed her paychecks, Thane could have stayed home full-time with Kolyat. For just a heartbeat, she allowed herself to imagine that: Thane having long, lazy afternoons to spend playing blocks with Kolyat, fixing his meals, sharing in a childhood he himself had never really had. She _wanted_ to give him that life, but her office was so often on the skids, given the rarity of Thalshir’s Syndrome. Everyone would take the vaccine when it was available, but when it came to coughing up funding, they would rather take the odds. And of course, there were _those_ who disagreed with the research entirely…

“It will come,” Thane urged, moving closer. “You just need to find the right ear, _siha_.” Irikah huffed through her nose and shook her head; how could she fight the urge to smile? Thane knew it too, the little shit, using that pet name of his. _Siha_ , indeed! A _real_ _siha_ would have been able to solve their little fiscal conundrum (that is, the issue of there not being _enough_ , _ever_ ).

“If you keep saying that, I’ll start thinking you really believe it,” she said, as she had said before. Thane’s posture relaxed and he moved close enough to reach out and run a thumb along her throat, from her chin to the hollow between her collarbones.

“I do believe it,” he said, and she melted with the softness of his voice. “I am certain that if you desired to burn the oceans to ash, you would manage.” Irikah just shook her head. She was never totally sure if Thane was such an odd duck because of the way he’d been raised, or it if was just _him_. She didn’t _know_ any other drell who genuinely followed the Old Religion anymore; she herself had been raised on the Enkindlers. She had asked him before where he had picked it up—wondering if he had chosen it himself, or if it had been handed to him by someone else, and he had opened to her, as he did so readily, trusting her unconditionally with all of him. It spoke to him, he said. It felt like _truth_.

(Maybe, she thought, he felt there was no place among the Enkindlers for one such as he, and so he turned for answers to Amonkira, ancient god of the hunt, in whom he saw more of himself, forever in pursuit of his prey.)

“If only I could just burn the asses of those hospitals who won’t fund us, but will take the vaccine once we’ve finished the development,” she said, catching his hand and holding it against the thin skin below her frills. “Or those bastards who are trying to stop us…”

“You do good work,” Thane replied. “It will come.” When he said it, she knew it wasn’t a compliment as to the _quality_ of her work, but its effect on society: he saw it in direct contrast with his own. Irikah closed her eyes, and shuffled forward to lean her forehead against Thane’s shoulder. He always felt so _solid_ to her touch, but he was so gentle with her, and with Kolyat. Even though she had seen him fight with her own eyes, she still sometimes struggled to picture the deadly threat that was the last thing some of his targets saw (the ones who saw him at all). Sometimes, she could picture it _perfectly_ , and it put a thrill low in her gut that made her press closer to him, something she had long ago given up on feeling guilty about.

“Thane…I don’t like this.”

“I am trying,” he said, enfolding her in his arms. “I _am_.” As if he thought she might not believe him. “But Irikah, we need things…”

“Other people manage without this,” she said, drawing back to look at him.

“Other people suffer, too,” he said bluntly. Irikah sighed again and rubbed the edge of her thumb between her eyes.

“We’re not that bad off yet,” she said.

“Okay.” And that was the end of it.

Irikah continued to mull over the conversation for the next several weeks. It couldn’t be that she disbelieved Thane, because that wasn’t true, so…what was it that her mind could not let rest? Thane often spent time in meditation, something Irikah found herself too restless for, but when he was out with Kolyat one afternoon, she decided to give it a try again. There was a place in the back of the house where they had arranged a light along the edge of the roof to mimic the fall of sunlight, which rarely pierced Kahje’s thick cloud-cover, and never reached through the water and the dome encasing the city, and she sat there, folding her legs as she had seen Thane do, and closed her eyes, replaying the conversation until memory overtook her. She wanted to stay longer, to see it again, but as usual, she struggled to focus on her own thoughts.

It wasn’t that she thought Thane would go behind her back, she realized with scandalized shock. It was that a part of her _wished he would_. She had to do what she did, asking him not to do it—but she couldn’t _control_ him. If he went on and did it anyway, what would she do? _Leave him!_ her inner voice announced at once, but even she wasn’t willing to bet on that response.

Disgusted with herself, Irikah got to her feet and went inside. It was all the better, then, that Thane would hold to his promise—since she, apparently, could not be trusted to force it.

When Thane came back, he cautioned her that Kolyat’s shoes didn’t fit properly anymore and Irikah lamented the rapid growth of children.

There was some work that Irikah could do from the house, which allowed her more time still to be home for Kolyat. The problem with this arrangement, of course, was the house’s propensity for distracting her.

That was how she ended up elbow-deep in the house’s dehumidifier in the middle of the work day, with what had to be her thirtieth vid on repairing it playing nearby. She and Thane had been toying with the thing enough to start becoming familiar with its mechanics, and every time they were ready to give up, the price of replacing the whole system sent them back to the manuals.

“Mama!”

Irikah swore, nearly dropped the metal pick in her hand, and jerked free of the machinery, unable to resist snapping.

“ _What_ , Kolyat?”

“Time for lunch?” The little boy hung back at her terse tone, and Irikah breathed deeply, trying to relax herself. It wasn’t Kolyat’s fault, it wasn’t fair to be short with him…but the fucking _dehumidifier!_ She’d heard Kolyat coughing the other night, and that was the real reason she was here—she would have been there if she had to come back from the labs and do it. For all of them on Kahje, the specter of Kepral’s Syndrome loomed like the tentacled companion beast of Kalahira, ready to drag them into the inky depths.

Thane’s imagination was getting to her, wasn’t it? That thought shook Irikah from her irritation, although the undercurrent of worry remained as she guided Kolyat to the kitchen to fix their lunch (canned things, as usual, which Irikah pushed dispassionately around her bowl while coaxing Kolyat to eat).

Late that night, with the city ensconced in darkness, Irikah woke alone. The air felt heavier at night, although it was always still under the dome. For a moment, as she pulled herself back to consciousness, some deep, biologic wish swept over her to quit the house and feel a warm, bone-dry breeze breathe over her scales. For just a heartbeat or two, some ancestor’s blood within her longed for _Rakhana_. Shaking it off, she donned a heavy shawl and used her search for Thane as an excuse to pace around the house.

She found him outside, looking up at the black water above them. There was an occasional dull flash between the fingers of his right hand—the worry token she had given him not long after their wedding. Was he thinking of Rakhana too? Or simply of their more immediate problems?

“It’s claustrophobic sometimes, isn’t it?” Irikah surprised herself with the words that came out, following Thane’s gaze far up to the crest of the dome.

“…Kalahira seems to speak with more strength here,” Thane murmured, the coin appearing and disappearing between his fingers. She knew what he meant—drell were not meant to live underwater. Most of them got used to it—some were always uneasy. But all of them grappled with the lingering whisper of a sentiment that this was not where they really belonged. Did the quarians feel this way also, she wondered? Was their desire to return to Rannoch not merely practical, but accompanied with a soul-deep ache for _home_? “Is that what woke you?”

“No, silly,” Irikah said, moving to stand beside him. “You were gone.”

“I found a job,” he said, after they had been quiet for a pause. “But it will take me away from here.”

“For how long?”

“Eight months.” Irikah fixed her shawl more firmly around herself and studied the outline of her beloved’s profile in the dark. “I would also need to pay for transportation.”

“They won’t cover it for you?”

“Not for unskilled labor,” he said. Irikah squeezed her arms around herself, feeling the night chill seep in through her feet.

“Kolyat will miss you.” The words tumbled out with no regard for what was wise—they had been fighting so hard to get Thane a steady, paying job, and now she would say something to discourage him from going?

“I would go for Kolyat,” he said, turning to look at her.

“I know.” Irikah’s eyes dropped, and she moved closer, so their shoulders pressed together.

“Do you think I should not take it?” Clearly he had not expected this, but it was so rare he would do anything without getting her approval first that she felt if she only gave the word, he would dismiss the opportunity at once.

“I…” _I don’t want you to be gone so long!_ She wanted him to find _work_ ; she wanted him to find _decent-paying_ work; she wanted him to find decent-paying work _nearby_. A sigh seemed to suck the words from her lungs, and she leaned her weight against Thane. “I don’t know what choice we have,” she said at last, too conscious of the fragile weariness in her own voice.

“When I left the Compact, I thought I would be free,” Thane said. “Now I seem to find myself simply bound by other handlers.” Irikah squeezed her arms against her chest, feeling a weight on her shoulders.

“Sometimes we’re not as free as we should be,” she said quietly.

“If I had stayed with Olandir, I would have work.” He spoke so lowly, Irikah half-wondered if she was not meant to hear.

“I still believe there is value in freedom of choice,” she said.

“Is it freedom of choice, when my alternative is to go hungry?” Thane held her gaze for a moment, then shook his head. “Forgive me. I am…anxious. It’s not your fault.”

“How much does this job pay?” Irikah asked, straightening up. “Is it worth traveling so far, being gone so long?”

“Does it matter? It pays _something_.” The coin was still twisting around in Thane’s hand.

“It does matter,” she said. “Just because it pays doesn’t mean it’s your best option. It may be better to wait for something closer to home.”

“You think I should not take it?” Irikah fought another sigh, her brow furrowing.

“I think you should decide,” she said, and Thane took on that blank look he got sometimes, when Irikah left something wholly up to his discretion. In his eyes, unspoken thoughts flickered like tiny shoals of fish, but he did not give voice to them.

“I think I should go,” he said softly. “I can send the wages back to you.” Irikah nodded. Maybe Thane was right, anyway—maybe she was just trying to rationalize not sending him away.

“And you’ll call?”

“Of course, _siha_.” Gentleness suffused his voice and he put a hand on her hip. “You remind me why I do these things. And you bring the sun down beneath the waves.”

“Oh, just wait,” she said, leaning into his touch. “I’ll call you every day, until you’re sick of hearing from me.”

“I could never be.” She couldn’t see his expression, but she could guess, and her throat warmed pleasantly in response.

“Now put that coin down and let’s go to bed,” she said. “We’ll have to make plans in the morning.” Thane’s empty hand slid into Irikah’s, and he let her guide him back inside, to rest.

Three months later, Thane was back, and the exhaustion was written into every line of his face.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Irikah said with a deep frown. “That foreman had it in for you.” Thane didn’t respond, to agree or disagree, or give a word to Kolyat before going to unpack his small bag.

That night, Irikah sorted through the mail while Kolyat napped on his father under the heat lamp. Another reminder they had bills overdue, and three more offers for loans, which Irikah stacked off to the side, rather than throwing away. The mortgage was the thing that was going to swallow them in the end…as long as they had a roof over their heads they could juggle the rest, but if they lost this house too…

“This is our third notice, isn’t it?” Irikah jumped in her seat at the sound of Thane’s voice suddenly beside her, and clamped down on a peevish reply when she saw Kolyat still asleep in Thane’s arms, his little head resting on his father’s shoulder.

“It is,” she said, deflating. She had not meant to tell him about it so soon after his return. Putting it off wouldn’t change it at all, but somehow, she thought she could soften the blows if she spaced them out a little more.

“We’re running out of time.” Irikah rubbed the edge of her thumb between her eyes and had nothing to say; there was no room left for disagreement. “I’m so sorry, Irikah.” It was too firm to be a whisper: subdued, but without the cowardice of being so quiet she might not hear.

“No!” At the sound of Thane’s broken regret, regret for being a part of her life, Irikah could not stay silent, though her raised voice made Kolyat stir and twist towards Thane’s chest. “Don’t be sorry,” she said sharply, turning her fire eyes on him. “I’m not, not for a second. I don’t regret any of it, Thane.”

“Someone else could—”

“Someone else _isn’t you_. That’s all that matters to me. We’ll figure this out. We _will_.” She rose to her feet. “This is no one’s fault. Not yours, or mine, or Kolyat’s, it just _is_ , and we will find a way past it.”

The reverence in Thane’s eyes reminded Irikah with knife-edged clarity how unaccustomed he was to personal loyalty, or _love_.

“Yes,” he breathed. In that moment, if she had bidden him swim up to Kahje’s surface, she was sure he would have done it. “We will,” he agreed, leaning into Irikah’s embrace, Kolyat between them, to press his face into the crook of her neck. “We will be happy,” he murmured, as if reciting a mantra to himself.

“We will,” she repeated firmly.

So the scrape and the struggle went on, and one day, as Irikah tried to stuff Kolyat into his jacket for a walk, fighting to get it to close over his growing body, she noticed a tear in one side.

“When did this happen?” she exclaimed.

“Don’t know,” Kolyat replied at once.

“Blast it…” Irikah examined the rip, and immediately began to puzzle over how she might repair it herself, though the jacket itself was quickly becoming too small for the boy. “Well, we’ll just…put you in something else…” She tossed the jacket aside and instead bundled Kolyat in her own hats and scarves, but he still complained his hands were cold before they made it back to the house.

She took the jacket into the kitchen later, so she might continue working over how to fix it make it last a bit longer.

_Until_ what _?_ she asked herself. Until Thane’s next job? When his paycheck would go to the mortgage and food? Until her next round of funding? Until they had dug themselves out from the pile of loans that balanced evermore precariously on their heads?

Irikah heard Kolyat cough in the next room, and she had a vision then, of their future: of Kolyat hungry, in clothes too small, never visiting a real doctor, of her trying desperately to make their worn-out old things last far beyond their use; of her son’s entire life being a battle, fighting to keep pace with his peers while carrying the ball and chain of their poverty behind him, forever into the future.

And she was doing this to him.

Thane’s guns were still out in the shed, untouched from when he had agreed not to partake in any more contracts. He was a few years out of the work now, but Irikah did not doubt he would slide back into it as a fish into water—whatever else he might develop a talent for, he had been _cultivated_ as an assassin. It was as natural to him as breathing. There was a reason Olandir had been so reluctant to release Thane from the Compact.

Irikah had made the decision even before acknowledging it. Her and Thane’s discussions on free choice echoed in the back of her mind, and she set the jacket aside. It was too small, and now it was badly torn, in a way she didn’t know how to repair. Kolyat needed a new jacket.

“We need to talk,” she told Thane that evening, gesturing towards the bedroom. No doubt attempting to analyze her tone, Thane complied, and Irikah shut the door. “We need things,” she said. Thane looked expectantly at her, for her to say something he _didn’t_ know already. Irikah took a slow, deep breath, giving herself one last chance to evaluate this decision before she committed. “These jobs aren’t working,” she said, “and the lab is never going to pay the bills.”

There was a shift in Thane’s expression as the pieces clicked into place. In that brief silence, she heard the dehumidifier wheeze, and she cursed inwardly as Thane’s eyes flicked up to the vent.

“I see.”

“You were right,” Irikah went on, struggling to control the feverish need to talk, to _justify_ , that rose up in her throat. “We don’t have a choice. We need the money. That’s just it. We need it. We can’t do without it. We can’t raise Kolyat if we have no house. And these people who hire you…you can’t be responsible for their morality. If not you, they’d find someone else. We have to be careful. But…” Her voice wobbled. “I just don’t see another option,” she whispered. “This can’t go on, Thane. We can’t keep going on like this.”

“I know.” When his hand touched her shoulder, she realized she was shaking. “I’ll take care of it,” he promised gently. “This is something I can do.”

_I shouldn’t have to ask you!_ she wanted to scream. She shouldn’t have to ask him to go back to that life! The tightness in her throat kept her from speaking; she had never felt more like she was betraying her beloved one. Swallowing hard, she lifted a hand and vigorously rubbed the edge of her thumb between her eyes.

“Until we’re stable,” she said. “We’ll figure something else out. But for now…” They had to get to get their feet on the ground; right now, they were flailing in open water, and if they kept breathing it in, it was going to be too late to do _anything_.

“I have one real skill,” Thane said lowly against the side of her head. “Let me use it for you and Kolyat.” Stiffly, Irikah nodded.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [On tumblr](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/639339212939886592/back-to-work-23) | [On Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1968119)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For fair warning, this is the chapter when those trigger warnings kick in.
> 
> Headcanons:  
> -Drell are carnivorous. They can go 2-3 days comfortably without eating, if they ate a sufficiently large meal beforehand.  
> \- Being from a desert environment, drell skin doesn't respond well to excessive exposure to water. They don't shower, they "spot clean" and oil their scales, so most drell homes don't have a bath or shower.

The coin turned over and over in Thane’s hand, flashing in the pale morning light, a kind of golden it had never managed in the dim light below the water. Dock space on Kahje wasn’t extensive—the hanar had no use for watercraft that _floated_ —but shuttles needed a place to land, and Thane was of a sort to know the old places, in disrepair, and the spots he was least likely to be disturbed.

There was a path before him now, stretching out into the horizon, but he hesitated to take the first step. It was such a long road, and he knew what it would give him—and what it would not. He knew the hours that road would take, he knew what it would eat up inside him, what it would demand of him. Once he was on it, there was no turning off, and it was such a long road.

Having no choice was something Thane had long been accustomed to, but Irikah had refused this notion. There was always a choice, she said. You might not like your options, but there was a choice.

This time, he saw that she was right: he had another choice.

His pistol was heavy on his hip, and he thought of the condemnation in Anikah’s eyes when he had given his goodbyes, such as they were. There was no anger in him for it; he could not bring himself to true anger at anyone but himself, and those who necessitated his path. Never before had the return of his battle-sleep sounded _comforting._ But sleep was temporary—it could be disturbed. And things which one set aside were always still there on waking.

 _Kolyat is better off without me_.

It was true, even stripped of value judgement. Thane had never known how to be a father—he had no memory of his own—and he had never learned. He had just seen proof of what he brought to Kolyat, and it disgusted him. There was—there should be—no room in Kolyat’s life for him.

What light made it through the clouds penetrated so shallowly into Kahje’s fathomless depths. Just below the surface was the dark, frigid embrace of Kalahira. He could feel her cheek against his, hear her whisper in the wind. Thane felt heavy; as if it took effort merely to keep himself upright and on his feet.

“Mistress of inscrutable depths,” he murmured, running his thumb over the face of the coin. The goddess was at his back. How sweet was her voice! Was it possible for death to be a tender thing? Thane fought to push back at the memories threatening to overtake him, and began to tremble. Kalahira’s hands gripped his shoulders. He squeezed his eyes shut, his breath catching in his throat.

_The door is open. We don’t leave the door open. Someone else is in the house._

_Furniture smashed, paintings torn down—the smell of blood, everywhere._

_In the kitchen—in the kitchen—the bent knife on the floor—_

Thane took a sharp breath and broke free, clutching the coin so tightly in his hand its ridges dug into his scales. No. He could not fall into Kalahira’s arms—not yet.

There was a path to follow, and he would follow it. That had been his mistake—in believing he could stray from the road that had been set out for him. He had rebelled against his destiny, against his given fate, and havoc had come down. So he had one last role to play, one last contract to fill, and he would see it done, down to the last bloody second, as was his duty.

With the toe of his shoe, he knocked a bit of debris into the water, and watched its outline as it passed through the light, sinking down into the breathless realm of Kalahira, promising silently that he would follow it as soon as his work here was done.

***

The night was ink black, lightless as the cold water far below the city floor, the dome’s great lights switched off for the day, when the knock came. Qulax turned to Anikah with a furrowed brow, but she shrugged. There was no one she expected so late—perhaps someone lost, looking for directions. She rose from her cushion and unlocked the front door. It was such a simple thing, so automatic, so guileless—she never could have known what she was letting in.

On her dark doorstep was her nephew, Kolyat, and his father. The wrongness _radiated_ off of them, and Anikah took a step back, despite herself.

“Kolyat,” she said to the blank-eyed boy. “Thane.” Her eyes shifted back, searching instinctively for Irikah, but they appeared alone.

“I need to talk to you.” Thane’s low voice always sounded like he was a doctor delivering unwelcome news—Anikah had laughed about it once with Irikah, who chided her gently for poking fun. But now, Anikah had the sense it wasn’t just Thane’s natural affectation making her gut twist.

“Well, it’s freezing out there, let’s get you inside.” She reached for Kolyat, but he flinched from her hand and stumbled in with a nudge from his father.

“Kolyat could use a shower,” he said, holding Anikah’s gaze. She fought not to look away, and called out to her husband.

“Qulax, can you take Kolyat out back?” When Qulax came to lead the boy to the spigot in the yard, Kolyat reached for his father’s coat, his little hands shaking.

“Go with your uncle, Kolyat.” Tension was coiled in Thane like a weighted spring, and Anikah was half-afraid he’d go off in their house. Irikah insisted she had rehabilitated her Compact assassin, but Anikah found it hard to forget what those hands were trained to do. Thane’s inclinations toward silence and watchfulness did not help. “Just for a minute. I need to speak with your aunt.” Perhaps realizing how cold he’d sounded, Thane gave Kolyat a bit more explanation, and pointed him after Qulax.

“What happened?” Anikah asked as soon as they were feasibly out of earshot.

“Irikah is dead.” Thane seemed to vomit the words out, like his body rejected them, and Anikah staggered back against the wall behind her, her throat blanching. There was a throbbing in the center of her chest, as if Thane had just shot her.

“No.”

“Batarians,” Thane whispered raggedly. “Slavers. They came for the house.”

“ _No!_ ” Anikah felt her heart hammering against her ribs, her breathing starting to come harsh and rapid. “Are they…will they come here? Mercy, what do they—” She cut herself off as the pieces clicked together, and she took stock of how Thane was dressed. “You,” she whispered. “They wanted _you_.”

He turned his face away, as rigid as stone, and fury swelled in Anikah’s throat, flushing her neck red.

“My sister,” she said, her voice rising. “My sister is dead because of you! You—you fucking assassin!” She waited for him to defend himself, to argue with her, so that she could rip his words to shreds and spit them back at him, but he offered her nothing, and rage stopped up her tongue.

“Yes,” he said at last, when she made no further move to attack. “It was my fault. I was careless, I…” His expression had gone slack, infinity stretching out before his eyes. “I did this.” They both fell silent, each fighting to speak, and Qulax returned with Kolyat, shivering in a towel.

“He can borrow something of mine while we wash his clothes,” Qulax said, his eyes flicking to Anikah’s face.

“Yes, that’s perfect. Thank you, dear.” Even to her own ear, her voice sounded like a stranger’s. When she dragged her attention back to Thane, he was clenching his fist around something in his hand, and still looking at her floor as if the answer was buried under the floorboards. “Food,” she said at last. “Dinner. Kolyat should eat.

“Yes, Kolyat should eat.” The boy roused them both from their wordless stupor, and Anikah went to the kitchen to bowl up the leftovers from dinner. Qulax brought him down in a shirt that hung down to his knees, as blank and silent as before. Thane coaxed him to a seat at the table, and Anikah presented him with the food. Kolyat looked up at his father, as if to ask why he was the only one eating, but the question didn’t come.

While Thane tried to convince Kolyat to eat, Anikah took Qulax into the kitchen. Giving him the simple news seemed to require more than Anikah had to give. She took deep, shaking breaths, and clutched her arms against her sternum, trying to summon the strength.

“She’s dead,” she whispered at last, her eyelids trembling. “My—she’s—Irikah…” Her voice broke, and Qulax pulled her at once into an embrace.

“Oh, Anikah.” She couldn’t break down, not yet. But she allowed herself to sink against Qulax’s thick frame, shivering and swallowing back her tears as best she could. “What…what happened?”

“They were there for _him_.” Into the word she poured all of her vitriol towards Irikah’s killers. “But he wasn’t here.”

“Mercy.” Qulax glanced back to the dining room and Anikah forced herself from his arms.

“I can’t believe it. I just…it feels like a dream.” She shook her head.

“You’re in shock, dear,” he told her gently, touching her arm.

“I know. But it…how can it be? Irikah, gone? Mercy, what will I tell everyone?” She pressed the edge of her thumb between her eyes, feeling the pressure build behind them. Holding the tears back was easier than she expected—which was perhaps the shock.

“Don’t think about that now,” Qulax urged. “One thing at a time. Thane and Kolyat will need a place to stay tonight.”

“Yes. Of course. The guest room.”

“I’ll freshen it up,” he said, gripping her upper arm briefly before leaving the kitchen. Anikah took a few more deep breaths and returned to the dining room. Kolyat did not appear to have eaten a single bite, and Thane had given up trying: they both sat in stunned silence. The shock must still be on them as well, Anikah realized.

“Did you come straight here?” she asked, pulling a seat for herself with more difficulty than it should have required.

“I…didn’t know where else to come,” Thane admitted, his eyes focusing briefly on Kolyat. Anikah nodded slowly. There had been a direction she’d intended with this conversation, but she couldn’t remember what it was now. Instead, she reached out to put a hand on Kolyat’s arm.

“You were right to come to family,” she said. Through the fog of her own loss, her heart cried out for her nephew, who would never know again his mother’s embrace. Something else occurred to her then and she looked to her sister’s husband. “Kolyat is not hurt,” she said.

“No. He…managed to hide.”

“Mercy.” Anikah let go of him and pressed her thumb between her eyes. The visceral image of her nephew cowering somewhere in the house while his mother was slain by savages turned her stomach. She wanted to pull him into her arms and rock him, but in his shock, he seemed to prefer more space.

“The guest room is all ready,” Qulax announced. “Not hungry, Kolyat? I have some fried sweetmeat, if you’d prefer that?” He offered this treat as a lure to get _something_ into Kolyat, but the boy shook his head. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound escaped, and then he clamped his jaw shut and shook his head again. Such a pain could not be fixed with trivialities, but they had precious little else to offer.

“You should rest,” Thane said to his son, managing to soften his voice. Kolyat lifted teary eyes to his father’s face, and a thread across Thane’s shoulders tightened. He rose and gave his hand to Kolyat, to lead him up to the guest room. How Irikah had ever expected a person raised in the Compact for killing to parent a child, Anikah would never understand.

Qulax sat heavily in Kolyat’s vacated seat, studying his wife unobtrusively.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Anikah said, her voice cracking slightly. “I…what do you _do_?”

“Whatever you can,” Qulax replied. “Right now, I think offering them shelter is the only thing we can do.”

“There will have to be a funeral…I don’t even know if he’s contacted the authorities! How have I not asked that!”

“One thing at a time,” Qulax reminded her, and Anikah resisted the illogical urge to snap at him. Someone needed to help her keep her head on; clearly she couldn’t do it alone.

It was only half a surprise when Thane came back downstairs alone.

“I need to ask a favor.” Part of Anikah wanted to demand to know how he felt he had the right to ask _anything_ of them; the other part cleaved to these remnants of her sister’s family, relieved they had come to her before anyone else.

“We’ll do whatever we can to help,” Qulax reassured him when Anikah did not speak.

“I need somewhere to leave Kolyat for a while,” Thane said. “I can cover his expenses, of course, but…I would prefer to leave him with his family, if I can.” Anikah noted that they were _Kolyat’s family_ not _our family_. Thane’s only family had ever been Irikah, pleasant as he had been with the rest of them.

_Thane doesn’t know how to be a partner_ , Irikah had confessed to her once over video. He didn’t know how to be part of a family either, but Irikah had been so convinced he could learn.

“Of course we won’t turn our nephew out,” she said, hearing her voice as if from another room, uncomfortably aware of the beat of her heart. “We will keep him as long as he needs somewhere to go.”

“If you need help seeing to things…” Qulax began. Thane gave a quick, sharp shake of his head, and Anikah sensed the restless tension in him mounting towards an end.

“There will need to be a service,” he said, and fixed his eyes on Anikah. “I wonder if you would prefer to do it.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Thane was not an adherent of the Enkindlers, and Anikah was quickly developing a sense of where this was going. Someone needed to handle Irikah’s funeral; it _should_ be her. Irikah had handled Mother’s, once upon a time; now it was Anikah’s turn. Thane gave a tiny nod, and Anikah could see his exit forthcoming. “I need a word with you,” she said, rising to her feet and gesturing to the entryway.

Thane followed her out to the front step, Anikah flicking on the porch light on her way out.

“You’re going to kill them.” Taken aback, Thane blinked both sets of eyelids rapidly at her. “The ones who killed Irikah.” He didn’t bother trying to deny it. “Do you really think,” Anikah asked, a tremor in her voice, “do you _really_ think that more _death_ will help this situation?” Still, Irikah’s husband was silent. “Let it go! Irikah is _gone_ ,” Anikah’s voice tore and she could barely get the end of the word out without her throat threatening to close up entirely, “you will not bring her back this way.”

“I cannot allow them to live,” he said, trying to reel back the harshness of his voice after he’d spoken. “Kolyat will not be safe until they are gone. If they knew the location of my house, they knew about Irikah, they must also know about Kolyat.” 

“So you’ll leave again,” Anikah said, shaking away the feeling that she would not care to be someone against whom Thane held a grudge. She had never known him to be temperamental or overly driven by personal sentiment—it was, she always thought, one of the signs he had been raised in the Compact: he never killed out of anger, or jealousy, or resentment. Someone, said a voice in the recesses of her mind, had just unleashed Kalahira’s kraken from its chains. “You can better protect Kolyat by staying with him!”

“And wait for them to come again? No, I can’t do that.”

“You can’t take the chance they’ll never come,” Anikah accused bitterly. The night air bit into her shoulders through her thin blouse, and the wetness of it hung obtrusively in her nose. Thane gave no sign of discomfort; he moved through the world like a shadow, never truly present, never really definable. Now the sun was down, and shadows would melt away without the light to give them form.

“I can’t let them hurt any more of Irikah’s family.”

“It could have been your family too.” Thane was silent again. “Don’t go,” Anikah asked again. “Kolyat just lost his mother; don’t take his father from him too.” Thane’s stone-chiseled face grew heavy, but he did not look away from Anikah’s eyes.

“Kolyat will be better off if I am gone,” he said. “I have never managed to be a good father to him.”

“He’s a child, he doesn’t understand that. He will only see that his father is gone.”

“Someday, he will.”

“Don’t do this.”

“I have to.”

Anikah let out a wobbly breath, feeling her eyes start to burn again, and at once, the fight seeped from her, and she had no energy left to bicker with Irikah’s absentee husband. She had no energy at all; there was a black hole at the center of her, a yawning crater where Irikah had once been. _My sister_.

“Then Kolyat will stay with us,” she said wearily. “As long as he needs a home, he is welcome here.” She and Qulax had never had children of their own—life had simply seemed full enough without—but she would gladly take in her sister’s only child.

“I will send you funds for him,” Thane promised. “We have savings.”

“If you feel the need.” Thane’s job had kept the family quite comfortable, Anikah knew that. The rapid turnaround from Irikah and Thane’s perpetual poverty in the early days of their marriage would have been highly suspect even if Irikah had not been honest and told Anikah that Thane had gone onto freelancing assassination work.

The conversation had reached the end of its life, and Thane shuffled his feet, looking for his exit.

“Anikah,” he said softly. When she met his eyes, there was a ghost dancing in their depths, tracing familiar, haunted steps with terrible grace. “I am sorry. I should never have spoken to her.” Anikah could not form a reply: too many things crowded her head, none of them fully formed, and before she could manage anything coherent, Thane took his leave, disappearing into the dark. She heard the sound of the car starting and pulling away from the house, and he vanished wholly into the black night.

It was the last time Anikah ever saw him face-to-face.

***

If they had still been communicating regularly when he was off-planet, he might have had warning that something was amiss. Thane didn’t contact his family when he was on jobs for practical reasons, but once he had been in the habit of letting Irikah know when he was on his way home. That hadn’t been the case for some years, so there was no radio silence to suggest anything was out of the ordinary.

If he had done a better job keeping in touch with his family, he might have had warning. Instead, the open door and broken window hit him like a boot to the gut. So many thoughts crowded his head at once he had to fall back on his training to keep from losing his senses entirely. The bag and sniper rifle he dropped, going instead for the pistol and giving the rooftop a quick scan before entering the house, straining for any sound of movement.

Silence.

The smell of blood hit him in a dizzying wave, and Thane swallowed hard. There were bullet holes in the ceiling; paintings had been torn off the walls and broken in half; furniture overturned; vases and dishes smashed throughout. This was not a robbery; he couldn’t even tell if anything had been taken. This was destruction for its own sake. And over it all, the smell of blood.

Moving quietly in such a mess was difficult, and the hammering of Thane’s heart bade him _run_ , _run_ and find his family, but he forced himself to move slowly. There was a scraping as his foot struck something in the debris, and he looked down to see Irikah’s old watercolor of Kolyat, the protective glass shattered. Fear nearly choked him as he passed through the empty sitting room, the vacant dining room, and then—

Before he even entered the kitchen he knew it had not been a quick fight. The destruction in that room outdid anything he had seen so far: not a thing seemed untouched, and blood pooled on the floor, splattered up the cabinets, some of which had their doors torn off or hanging crookedly on their hinges, like a clumsy crime writer’s depiction of a suitably alarming scene.

For the rest of his life, to the very end, Thane would maintain the hardest thing he ever did was entering that room. Everything in him was screaming to turn away, but he pushed himself forward as a penitent raises the lash.

Her name trembled on his lips and Thane remembered what Olandir had warned him of when he asked to be released from the Compact: Not everyone is destined to be happy.

_I have one skill. Let me use it for you and Kolyat._

Edging into the room, dragging his feet through shards of china, over discarded pots and pans, studiously avoiding the blood streaks.

_You think the Compact serves to display your skill_ , his old mentor had reprimanded him, when he sought to impress her by taking out his targets with fists and biotics rather than guns, proving to the others how close he could get to his kills without alerting them. _Such arrogance will always get you knocked down a peg or two. In our job, it will get you killed_.

When he saw the first curl of Irikah’s yellow fingers peeking out from behind the island, it broke something in his chest that never healed. The gun hit the floor, and he had no thoughts left for safety or prudence. The emptying of his stomach was convulsive, as if his body was attempting to physically reject what he was seeing.

“No! No! No, no, no!” Someone was crying out as Thane fell to his knees, dragging himself to the bloodied corpse of his sunshine. The room pounded it into his head again and again: this had not been a quick fight. Irikah’s death had not been swift. His imagination exploded scenes of her torment and anguish across the backs of his eyelids and Thane wailed, grabbing her cold body to pull it onto his lap, cradling it against him.

“Kalahira, please,” he whispered. “Not her, not her, not her. I will…anything. Irikah, please.” The smell of her scale oils was overpowered by the biological reek in the room, but Thane went on clutching her like a buoy.

_You think the Compact serves to display your skill._

His shaking fingers touched the ruined mess of her throat, the shredded tangle of her clothing, and slid her outer eyelids closed. He squeezed her against him and shut his eyes, and wondered why Kalahira did not also take him. What was he without her? What was Kolyat—Kolyat!

Nothing in the galaxy but the thought of his son could have torn Thane from his dead beloved, and at once his was on his feet, pistol in hand.

“Kolyat!” he shouted, no longer caring if any lingering misanthropists were around to hear. “Kolyat!” He was a hurricane through the house, through each room, and bursting into the yard to bellow. “Kolyat! It’s your father, I’m here! You’re safe!” It seemed a cruel joke to say such a thing, when it was he who had wrought this down on them. “Kolyat!” Wild-eyed, he spun around, as if he might have simply overlooked the boy. It was possible, he thought, that Irikah had gotten him out of the house in time. He might have fled to a neighbor, or to friends. Kolyat’s absence relieved him that he had yet to stumble over a tiny corpse, and set a panic in his chest that was determined to shake his insides into dust.

“Kolyat! Where are you?” Thane’s voice was breaking. Back into the house, to finish ripping apart what the invaders had failed to; even as he realized he was ransacking places too small even for his ten-year-old to hide, he kept going, unable to stop himself from excavating every possible hiding place where his boy might be cowering. The intruders had been through every room: even Kolyat’s room had been ransacked, his toys smashed, his drawings torn to pieces. “Kolyat! Tell me where you are!”

The bedroom had been utterly ruined; it looked as if someone had set the bedding briefly on fire and smelled like piss. The closet had been torn open, clothing strewn across the floor, the tall clothing hamper lying on its side and spilling its contents. Thane grabbed it and overturned in his quest to empty every possession they owned onto the floor, and the resultant thump caught his attention.

Kolyat, in a ball of wet clothing on the floor, blank-eyed and shaking like a leaf in the wind.

“Mama,” he whispered, apparently little comforted by the sight of his father bloodstained and waving a gun around. “Mama.”

“Kolyat!” Thane fell again to his knees and pulled his son into his arms, cradling him as he had not since Kolyat was a baby. “Kolyat, Arashu be praised.” Kolyat said nothing, but sat trembling in his father’s embrace.

Anyone who might have malingered in the house could not have missed Thane’s presence, which meant unless they were waiting to get the drop on him, the house was empty. Thane’s mind started to break away from the tumult in his soul, guiding him forward.

_Get Kolyat out of the house_.

Yes. That was the first thing he had to do. He scooped the boy up, balancing Kolyat’s weight on his hip, with his pistol in his other hand, and headed out of the house. In the hall, he paused, and holstered the gun, to press Kolyat’s face into his shoulder. The least, the very, pitiful least he could do for his boy was to spare him the sight of his mother’s mangled corpse and the story of the struggle written across the kitchen walls.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, releasing Kolyat’s head when they were through the front door. He carried Kolyat to the car, and set him in the back seat.

_Anikah._ _Anikah can take him._

“We’re going to see your aunt and uncle,” he told Kolyat, doing Kolyat’s buckle for him. “I’ll get you something to eat there, okay?” His son continued to stare, and Thane’s inadequacy as a parent struck him sharply against the cheek.

“It will…” He could not tell Kolyat it would be okay. How could it be? Irikah was dead. Irikah, his beloved one, his treasure, his _siha_ , was gone. And it was his fault. _My fault. My fault, my fault, my fault._

_You think the Compact serves to display your skill. It will get you killed._

“I will make sure you are safe, Kolyat.”

_Kill them._

_Kill them all._

***

It was late morning when the light went off. Thane had arranged a few alert systems around the house after his first several contracts, but for the most part their home life went undisturbed by his work, aside from his frequent absence from the house. So when she first noticed it, while de-bugging some succulents in the study, she had a bemused moment where she thought it must be broken, because it had never gone off before.

The little flashing light that Thane had put in to warn her of any unexpected presence on the property. Irikah’s next thought was to brush it off. In the earliest days of Thane’s return to assassination, he had warned her about the potential dangers, and had set up systems in the old house as well, but so many years had gone by with Thane’s work no more than a distant unpleasantry of which they rarely spoke that it seemed baffling, patently nonsensical, to think it could have followed him to their neat house with its wide windows and silent dehumidifier.

Putting the tweezers aside, more puzzled than anything else, Irikah went to the front of the house. Passing by a window, she crossed paths with, of all things, a batarian, stalking around the outside of the house. Her brain felt like it was trying to kick into gear through a bowl of gelatin. Batarians weren’t on Kahje; almost _no one_ came to Kahje—it was simply easier to make the hanar and their drell attendants travel than it was for outsiders to make the trip to Kahje.

_It’s wrong_ , a tinny voice in her head was urging. _This is wrong._

“Yes…” she murmured to herself. “Kolyat. Kolyat!” She raised her voice to call for her son. “I need you to do something for me,” she said, and the sight of him, all seafoam-green and childishly wide-eyed, started to flush the sluggishness from her mind. “I need you to hide, Kolyat. There may be trouble. Go and find a place to hide in my room, okay? And don’t come out, or make any noise, until I say so. No matter what, okay?”

“But Mama—”

“No time for questions, Kolyat. Go hide, I’ll come get you.” She kissed the top of his head and made for the kitchen, where she selected the largest of the knives there.

The rational part of her brain, the part that knew it was _silly_ to think there could be violent criminals or any other such trouble out on her gravel, told her this was a complete overreaction.

But the part of her from many years ago, the part that remembered the grimness of Thane’s face taking some of his comm calls, and how _long_ it had taken him to learn to relax, refused to be quieted.

Thane was not an anxious, panicky man. If he had warned her of the danger, even if it had been long ago, he had not done so idly.

She would open the door. She would open the door and ask what they wanted and sort this out. Her stomach was crawling into her throat, but there was Kolyat of whom to think.

_Until we’re stable_ , she’d said. But it had worked so well, hadn’t it? They were comfortable, and Kolyat was comfortable, and they could even sign checks to slide some money to Irikah’s labs on occasion. It was so _nice_ to be comfortable.

_I’ll take care of it_ , Thane had said. And Irikah had washed her hands of it at that moment, hadn’t she?

“I’m overreacting,” she said aloud. “Someone has the wrong house.” There was no chance to open the door—the alarm-tripper threw it open, flanked by armed batarians, and turned promptly in the direction of the kitchen. When his small, pale eyes landed on Irikah, his fleshy human face split into a rank grin.

“You must be Irikah.”

_Breathe in. Breathe out._ Irikah gripped the knife by her side and lifted her chin as the intruders let themselves into her home.

“We’re here to give a message to your husband,” he said, advancing slowly towards the kitchen.

“Thane isn’t here,” she said, proud of how steady her voice came out.

“Oh, believe me,” said the door-kicker, the smile curling into something vilely unpleasant, made Irikah’s insides twist into repulsed knots. “We know.”

“I don’t see the kid,” reported one of the batarians from the living room.

“He’s on a school trip,” Irikah said, the lie flowing off her tongue like she’d been trained to it. “Whatever business you have, I will have to serve.”

“First things first, eh?” Stiv Kay shouldered his shotgun, that ear-to-ear smirk still stretched across his face.

_Breathe in, breathe out._ Irikah thought of Thane, a thousand light-years away, and the news he was going to find on his return. She thought of the mistakes they had made, in their pride and self-assurance, she thought of that path they had started on so long ago when she stepped in front of his targeting laser.

_If your sea is real,_ Irikah thought _, I will wait for you on the shore._

Irikah Krios raised her knife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon fact: The "One-Hour Massacre" on Omega took out a dozen or so members of a batarian slaving ring over the course of a single hour. No one was ever charged, but the Shadow Broker's dossier notes Thane Krios was responsible for the spree.
> 
> I need to write something happy now T_T
> 
> [On tumblr](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/639431987986366464/back-to-work-33) | [On Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1970464)
> 
> If you liked this, you might also like...  
> \- [Prayers for the Wicked](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13551633) by CelticKnot  
> \- [Paper Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/555236/chapters/990007) by quiet_one


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